.s! 






m^m^^Wf, 



^&B^^rm 



^^/^Ml 



1 1 






^).^f^r)f^fti'^C:'> 



>^/^Afi\■:/^fl 



**^/^A^m^A^ 



r^^^om.^^^^or 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

©]^p iiqajri^ fn.-.. 

I Shelf -..-'w-7 (i 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



.Aftft^eS^S 






SrS^^ADr^^r^^' 



'«^A*ft?^B#o' 



s.ww«v.^>^^i' 









^o,^-^A^;' 



i^^^^^W- '-^^aaL 






mmmm 






'^^^h^:mf^,m^ 



««A««AA«^«R 



'8l^^' 



vA^^^A'^Af^Ai^ 









i^A/^^AA 



.^,<^,^C,^^A^,N^A 



n^'J^aaaa;'^^^^^^:., 



-^QAr^^WS; 















jK n- ' n '\ /^ .■^ ' « 1 " 



^Sseii^i 



■^""""""^^^^^-•?iS-S^S;«M 



GARFIELD 



^bc Jbeal flDan 



J. O. CONVERSE 



CLEVELAND 
W'lLLLAM W. WILEIAMS 

1882 



'm: 




32. 



GARFIELD 



THE IDEAL MAN. 



AN ADDRESS 

Delivered before the Geauga County Teachers' Instkute, at 
Burton Ohio, Wednesday evening, August 9, i. 
and the Portage County Teachers' Institute, 
at Ravenna, Ohio, Tuesday even- 
ing, August 17, 1882. 



J. O. CONVERSE, ^ 

Editor of the Geauga kepublican, Chardon, Ohio. 



CLEVELAND, O.: q 

WILLIAM W\ WILLIAMS. ^^O^Vr 
1882. 



E 4^ 



1 



C H 



Entered, according to act of Congress, in the year 1882, 

By J. O. CONVERSE, 
in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 



GARFIELD, THE IDEAL MAN. 



GARFIELD, THE IDEAL MAN. 



Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen of the 
Institute, Felloiv-eitizens : 

The life of a truly great man, of world- 
wide renown, passed into history is a 
theme which, often as it may be presented 
can never grow old ; and, if that life be one 
of such noble achievement, and in which 
centered such high hopes and grand possi- 
bilities, as in that of James A. Garfield, 
forever consecrated and enshrined by mar- 
tyrdom, it will never cease to be of the 
deepest and most tender interest. It is as 



6 GARFIELD, 

an inexhaustible fountain, from which we 
may ever draw fresh lessons of wisdom, 
instruction, and inspiration. 

It seems but yesterday since the fatal 
deed was done which bereft us of that 
precious life, and, amid the tears of mill- 
ions, we bore our murdered President to 
his resting-place at Lake View, and we 
have scarcely yet emerged from the shadow 
of that great cloud of sorrow which so sud- 
denly spread like a pall over the Nation ; 
but, as it is slowly passing, we may begin 
to discern its silver lining, as we trace, 
though dimly as yet, the outlines of the 
earthly career of him whose loss we all so 
deeply deplore. 

It is profitable, as well as consoling, now 
to reflect that great characters and lives, 
whatever may befall their possessors, are 
not accidents, nor do great afflictions 
spring from the ground. To borrow a 
spray from the departed, who is yet present 



THE IDEAL MAN. J 

with US, and who, though dead, yet speak- 
eth, in so many beautiful, comforting, and 
inspiring words that will live: **It is one of 
the precious mysteries of sorrow that it 
finds solace in unselfish thought. " Never so 

"Sweet are the uses of adversity" 

as when they teach us to find, even in our be- 
reavements and losses, the sources of higher 
instruction and greater blessing, if we but 
view them aright. And what is true of in- 
dividuals is equally true of a Nation. 
When bowed in grief by some terrible visi- 
tation, like the taking off of a Lincoln or a 
Garfield, it is hard at first to realize how any 
good can come out of it ; but when, in 
calmer retrospect, we read the lesson of the 
great martyr's life, we know he has not 
lived or died in vain, and are lifted up and 
ennobled thereby. 

I approach my theme with diffidence, 
and touch it only because my heart is full 
of it. We are yet too near to comprehend 



8 GARFIELD, 

its full import. As with great objects in 
nature, so with great men, it is only in the 
distance that their grandeur fully appears. 
''No pageof human history, " said Garfield, 
" is so instructive and significant as the record 
of those early influences which develop the 
character and direct the hves of eminent 
men." I can do little more than speak of 
him as seen from my own standpoint, as 
his humble friend. What was he ? What 
were the elements of his character? What 
was the secret of his success? What were 
the leading motives of his action? What 
the sources of the majestic current of his 
great life? 

Were I to describe Garfield in a single 
sentence, as he seemed to me, I would say 
he was The Ideal Man. If, as he believed, 
"every character is the joint product of 
nature and nurture," then surely no man 
was ever more highly favored by these two 
creative forces. Every man of real, native 



THE IDEAL MAN. 9 

Strength and genuine worth, though he 
may not measure them, is conscious — and 
it is no egotism for him thus to be con- 
scious — of the existence of his own pecul- 
iar powers as well as weaknesses. He 
must, to that extent at least, know himself. 
That Garfield was not wanting in this self- 
consciousness is evident from his own declar- 
ation that, "to every man of great original 
power, there comes, in early youth, a mo- 
ment of sudden discovery — of self-recogni- 
tion — when his own nature is revealed to 
himself, when he catches, for the first time, 
a strain of that immortal song to which his 
own spirit answers, and which becomes 
thenceforth and forever the inspiration of 
his life, 

" Like noble music unto noble words." 

To learn, then, how to estimate the char- 
acter of a man like Garfield, we should ac- 
quaint ourselves as nearly as possible with 
those elements in him which seem most to 



10 GARFIELD, 

be the conscious inner springs of all his 
thought and action. And in so far as these 
revealed themselves in his character and life, 
they proclaimed him what I believe he would 
have most liked to be regarded, The Ideal 
Man. Not a perfect man, for none are per- 
fect, none without human imperfections and 
defects ; not an idealist, in the sense of being 
a visionary dreamer or Utopian transcendent- 
alist, for nothing could be more foreign to 
his nature ; but, more accurately speaking, 
pre-eminently 3.man of ideals ; one who, in 
the grandest and noblest sense, ever strove 
to make real the ideal in every field of labor, 
and in every walk of life, from the hum- 
blest and most obscure to the most exalted 
and distinguished. From the smallest be- 
ginning to the culmination of his marvelous 
career, we find every effort prompted, every 
achievement gauged and measured, by some 
lofty ideal. Accordingly, he had no faith 
in luck, but unbounded faith in patient, 



THE IDEAL MAN. I I 

persistent, intelligent industry, which he 
expressed in the homely but true proverb, 
"A pound of pluck is worth a ton of 
luck. " ' * Luck, " said he, " is an ignis fat- 
uus. You may follow it to ruin, but 
never to success." And of like. import are 
these sayings: "Things don't turn up in 
this world until somebody turns them up." 
"Young men talk of trusting to the spur 
of the occasion. That trust is vain. Oc- 
casions cannot make spurs. If you expect 
to wear spurs, you must win them. If you 
wish to use them, you must buckle them 
to your own heels before you go into the 
fight." " Occasion may be the bugle-call 
that summons to battle, but the blast of a 
bu^le can never make soldiers or win vie- 
tories. " "Growth is better than perma- 
nence, and permanent growth is better than 
all. " * ' For the noblest man that lives there 
still remains a conflict." " I am more than 
ever convinced," said he, in a conver- 



12 GARFIELD, 

sation at my house, but a year or two 
before his death, ''that, other things being 
equal, the great differences . between men 
are, after all, in their relative capacities for 
hard work." In saying, " If you are not 
too large for the place, you are too small 
for it," he was but expressing in other 
words the thought that every man should 
ever keep before him some grand ideal, be- 
yond his present attainment, in every 
sphere of duty and endeavor. With a life 
molded and fashioned by such high and 
noble conceptions, he was of necessity an 
ideal boy, an ideal scholar, an ideal soldier, 
an ideal statesman, an ideal friend, husband, 
father, man. To him even the Presidency, 
a prize so many inferior men have vainly 
coveted, though the free gift of a great 
people, came too soon. "This honor," he 
remarked at the Williams Class dinner in 
Washington, on the day before his inaugu- 
ration, ' * comes to me unsought. I have 



THE IDEAL MAN. I 3 

never had the Presidential fever, not even 
for a day, nor have I it to-night. I have 
no feeHng of elation in view of the position 
I am called upon to fill. I Avould thank 
God were I to-day a free lance in the House 
or the Senate. But it is not to be, and I 
will go forward to meet the responsibilities 
and discharge the duties that are before me 
with all the firmness and ability I can com- 
mand." But he was not unambitious. He 
may have thought of the Presidency as an 
honor not to be prematurely grasped, but 
to be gratefully accepted when it should 
come to him at last, in the fulness of time, 
when his labors and triumphs in other fields 
should be complete, as the ideal crown of a 
well-rounded life of devotion to the public 
service. He would have made an ideal 
Senator, and to forego his natural desire, 
seemingly about to be realized, to enter the 
Senatorial arena after graduation from the 
House, even with the Presidency in view. 



14 GARFIELD, 

was like missing an essential link in the 
chain of an ideal ambition. Knowing him, 
and remembering the early promise of his 
administration, can we doubt that, had he 
lived, he would have proved an ideal Pres- 
ident? 

The scope of a lecture like this will per- 
mit but a glance at a few of the many 
branches of the life of Garfield in which he 
may be said to have realized in greater or 
less degree his own ideals. And, first, we 
will view him as The Ideal Teacher. I use 
this term not in a restricted or technical, 
but in the broadest and most comprehen- 
sive sense, as implying all that is expressed 
in the terms educator and scholar. We 
have reason to. believe that no other period 
in this life was so full of interest to him, or 
regarded by him with so much satisfaction, 
as that in which he was known only as a 
scholar or teacher. 

Emerson says, in his lecture on "The 



THE IDEAL MAN. I 5 

American Scholar," that *'it is one of those 
fables which, out of an unknown antiquity, 
convey an unlooked for wisdom, that the 
gods, in the beginning, divided man into 
men, that he might be more helpful to him- 
self; just as the hand was divided into 
fingers, the better to answer its end. The 
old fable," he avers, ** covers a doctrine ever 
new and sublime ; that there is one man, — 
present to all particular men only partially, 
or through one faculty; and that you must 
take the whole society to find the whole 
man. Man is not a farmer, or a professor, 
or an engineer, but he is all. Man is priest, 
and scholar, and statesman, and producer, 
and soldier. In the divided or social state, 
these functions are parceled out to indi- 
viduals, each of whom aims to do his stint 
of the joint work, whilst each other performs 
his." 

"In this distribution of functions the 
scholar is the delegated intellect. In the 



10 GARFIELD, 

right State he is Man Thinking. In the de- 
generate state, when the victim of society, 
he tends to become a mere thinker, or, 
still worsCj the parrot of other men's think- 
ing." 

Though some may hesitate to accept 
this definition to the fullest extent,- all must 
admit that, on the whole, Garfield, in the 
character of his mental processes, in the 
depth and breadth of his culture, and in the 
quality and variety of his gifts and achieve- 
ments, realized more nearly than any other 
man of his time, the Emersonian ideal of 
the American scholar — Man Thinking. 
When in the maturity of his 'powers and at 
the height of his usefulness and fame, we 
could hardly think of him as a scholar, for, 
though we recognized his rare acquire- 
ments, they seemed never prominent save 
as an element in that complete, symmetrical 
manhood of which he was so splendid an 
embodiment and type. The most perfect 



THE IDEAL MAN. 1/ 

results are attained only when we are un- 
conscious of the skill or ability in any 
particular department they require, and 
affected only by their influence. The most 
eloquent orator does not impress us with 
the thought that he is eloquent, but his 
eloquence, like a subtle, all-powerful influ- 
ence, moves and thrills us, we know not 
why. And so of the true scholar. Garfield 
was so much more than an ordinary scholar 
— so utterly devoid of everything resem- 
bling pedantry — that, while he gave us so 
abundantly of his unfailing mental re- 
sources, we received his gifts, like the air 
and light of heaven, unconscious of their 
presence. 

In seeking for the elements which made 
Garfield the Ideal Teacher, let us first in- 
quire how he was regarded by those with 
whom he was earliest, longest, and most 
intimately associated in the same field 
of labor and pursuit, — who drank with 



1 8 GARFIELD, 

him the earhest and richest draughts from 
the fountain of knowledge. And here we 
find but one unvarying testimony : that he 
was, first and foremost of all, an ideal stu- 
dent. Garfield recognized the fact that he 
who would govern must first learn to obey; 
he who would be a successful teacher must 
prove himself capable and worthy by being 
a patient, industrious, and faithful pupil. I 
quote from President Hinsdale's "Hiram 
College Memorial," as follows: 

"President H. W. P^verest, of Butler 
University, Indiana, who was a student 
with Garfield in Chester, as well as a student 
and teacher with him in Hiram, thus speaks 
in a late private communication: 

" *I met him first at Chester. Rooming 
in the same building, and working for a 
while at the same carpenter's bench, we 
soon became intimate. He was a notice- 
able student, both on the play-ground and 
in the class-room. We recited Robinson's 



THE IDEAL MAN. 1 9 

algebra together, and belonged to a literary 
society of our own getting-up, called the 
"Mystic Ten." At Hiram I was not 
classed with him, yet knew much of him 
as a student, but more of him as a teacher. 
My estimate is briefly as follows ; and for 
many of the items I remember distinct 
illustrations: 

"'I. His intellections were clear, vig- 
orous, and easy in all directions, but espe- 
cially so in the languages. 

" ' 2. He did not study merely to recite 
well, but to knozv, and for the pleasure of 
learning and knowing. 

" ' 3. It was his main object to master 
the thought, but the language was retained 
with the thought. 

" ' 4. As study was the easy play of his 
mind, so to recount and review his lessons 
and reading was a frequent pleasure. 

'''5. He was a master at condensed 
classifications, so that his memory easily 



20 GARFIELD, 

held and reproduced what he had learned. 

'''6. He had a wide-awake curiosity, 
which seemed never to be satiated. A new 
thing, however unimportant, always at- 
tracted his attention. 

" ' 7. He had a great desire and settled 
purpose to conquer, to master the lesson, 
to prove superior to every difficulty, to 
excel all competitors, to conquer and sur- 
pass himself. 

" * 8. With this desire to conquer, there 
was found the most generous and exultant 
admiration at the success of another. 

"'9. Over all his study he shed the 
glory of a happy disposition — of youth, 
hope, and manly courage.' 

"All these points," remarks President 
Hinsdale, **are well taken, but several of 
them deserve especial emphasis. He stud- 
ied to know, and for the pleasure of learn- 
ing and knowing. With this may be con- 
nected President Everest's seventh point, 



THE IDEAL MAN. 21 

Garfield's settled purpose to conquer, to 
prove superior to every difficulty. His love 
of victory, over men or things, was the 
strongest ; but it was a love born of the 
noblest elements. He took no pleasure in 
a merely personal triumph ; but a triumph 
that was a test of honorable superiority, he 
keenly enjoyed. Here, too, may be men- 
tioned his full appreciation and generous 
recognition of all men, even though compet- 
itors or opponents. His determination to 
master whatever he undertook, especially 
to subdue his own nature, is well illustrated 
by an anecdote. Sitting on a log in the 
edge of the woods, back of the college 
building in Hiram, he once said to the 
companion of his walk : ' I have made a 
painful discovery. I have found that my 
mind needs interest in a subject to incite 
it to continuous action. The other day I 
tried to read through a long bill in which 
I had no interest ; it was merel}' my duty to 



22 GARFIELD, 

read it. My attention wandered, thus 
revealing a defect in my training. If I 
cannot otherwise overcome this defect,' he 
said, ' I will give up my work, renounce 
public life, go to Germany, and take a full 
course in one of the universities. I must 
be full master of my powers at any cost. ' 

"At this time he had been in Congress 
several years." 

Years after Garfield had ceased to teach, 
and when he had already acquired a na- 
tional reputation as a statesman (to further 
quote from the same work), he one day 
gave a lecture to the teachers' class in 
Hiram College, in which he related the fol- 
lowing anecdote, characteristic of himself 
in this early yet important period of his life: 

' ' When I first taught a district school, I 
formed and carried out this plan : After I 
had gone to bed at night, I threw back the 
bedclothes from one side of the bed. Then 
I smoothed out the sheet with my hand. 



THE IDEAL MAN. 25. 

Next, I mentally constructed on this smooth 
surface my school-room. First I drew the 
aisles, here I put the stove, there the teach- 
er's desk, in this place the water-pail and 
cup, in that the open space at the head of 
the room. Then I put in the seats, and 
placed the scholars upon them in their 
proper order. I said here is John, with 
Samuel by his side ; there Jane and Eliza, 
and so on, until they were all placed. 
Then I took them, up in order, beginning 
next my desk, in this manner: This is 
Johnny Smith. What kind of a boy is he ? 
What is his mind, and what his temper ? 
How is he doing? What is he now as 
compared with a week ago ? Can I do any- 
thing more for him ? And so I went on 
from seat to seat, and from pupil to pupil, 
until I had made the circuit of the room. 
I found this study and review of my pupils 
of great benefit to them and to me. 
Besides, my ideal construction, made on 



24 GARFIELD, 

the bed-sheet in the dark, aided me mate- 
rially in the work." 

To President Everest's analysis of Gar- 
field's character as a student, I here add his 
analysis of his character as a teacher : 

"I. He was always clear and certain. 

'* 2. He impressed the main things, but 
passed perhaps too lightly over the subor- 
dinate portions. 

" 3. He had rare ability at illustration. 

'* 4. He gave more attention to the boy 
than to the book. He strove to develop 
the student, not the lesson or science. 

"5. He was abundant in praise of suc- 
cess, but sparing of blame. 

"6. He inspired his students with a 
spirit of investigation and conquest. 

*'/. By frequent and rapid reviews he 
kept the whole work in hand, and gave it 
completeness." 

Among the peculiar qualifications of Gar- 
field as a teacher, I would name the power 



THE IDEAL MAN. 25 

of self-control ; he was ever master of him- 
self. And not the least of his qualifications 
was his generous and sensitive appreciation 
of the needs and possibilities of those 
under his charge — a qualification every 
teacher ought to possess, and in which he 
was certainly unsurpassed, if not un- 
equalled. It was this, joined with other 
qualities, that gave him the tact to meet all 
emergencies that might arise, and turn them 
to the best account for the good of the 
individual scholar and the interest of the 
school. In the spirit of the ideal teacher, 
as well as of the philosopher, patriot, and 
philanthropist that he was, he could say in 
his address on The Elements of Success : 

** I feel a profounder reverence for a boy 
than for a man. I never meet a ragged 
boy on the street without feeling that I may 
owe him a salute, for I know not what pos- 
sibilities may be buttoned up under his 
shabby coat. When I meet you in the full 



26 GARFIELD, 

flush of mature life, I see nearly all there is 
of you ; but among these boys are the 
great men of the future, — the heroes of the 
next generation, the philosophers, the 
statesmen, the philanthropists, the great re- 
formers and molders of the next age. 
Therefore, I say, there is a peculiar charm 
to me in the exhibitions of young people 
engaged in the business of education." 

In estimating Garfield's service in the 
cause of education, we are not limited to 
that period of his life in which he was 
known and recognized merely as a student 
or teacher, rich and fruitful as it was in its 
wealth of intellectual and moral resources, 
— but the same characteristics were mani- 
fested alike in the school-room, the pulpit, 
and the forum. Since to educate, and be 
educated, was to him the business of life, 
he was never content with present attain- 
ments or old methods, and his constant 
plea was for a higher and more practical 



THE IDEAL MAN. 2J 

education. *'The old necessities," he de- 
clared, ' ' have passed away. We now have 
strong and noble languages ; rich in litera- 
ture, replete with high and earnest thought, 
the language of religion, science, and liber- 
ty ; and yet we bid our children feed their 
spirits on the life of the dead ages, instead 
of the inspiring life and vigor of our own 
times. I do not object to classical learning 
— far from it — but I would not have it ex- 
clude the living present." Accordingly, he 
did not leave his character as a teacher be- 
hind him when he entered Congress, but 
there gave to the country the ripe fruit of 
his thought and experience as an educator 
in such exhaustive and unanswerable 
speeches, and well-matured and beneficent 
laws, for the promotion of National educa- 
tion, as had never before emanated from the 
mind and heart of any American states- 
man. He believed (to use his own words) 
that ''the intellectual resources of this 



28 GARFIELD, 

country are the elements that he behind all 
material wealth, and make it either a curse 
or a blessing;" and, so believing, "I in- 
sist," said he, '* that it should be made an 
indispensable condition of graduation in 
every American college [as our legislators 
are at last coming to regard it as an essen- 
tial qualification in a school-teacher], that 
the student must understand the history of 
this continent since its discovery by Euro- 
peans, the origin and history of the United 
States, its constitution of government, the 
struggles through which it has passed, and 
the rights and duties of citizens who are to 
determine its destiny and share its glory." 
Sufficient importance has never been 
attached to the fact that Garfield was the 
author of the bill for the establishment of 
a National Bureau of Education, which be- 
came a law in 1867, and, although it met 
with much unwise opposition, and was sub- 
sequently reduced to a bureau in the De- 



THE IDEAL MAN. 29 

partment of the Interior, it will stand as a 
monument to his far-seeing statesmanship 
long after the smaller schemes that now 
engross the attention of politicians and 
divide the people into parties and factions, 
shall have been forgotten. He was also 
the author of that section of the Revised 
Statutes of the United States which pro- 
vides for Army Post Schools, — a measure 
from which, if carried out as it should be, 
untold benefits may be expected to follow. 
Besides being the author of both these 
measures, he was a most earnest, persistent, 
and eloquent supporter of every scheme 
for advancing the just claims upon the Gov- 
ernment, of education, science, and relig- 
ion. "The children of to-day," said Gar- 
field, ''will be the architects of our 
country's destiny in 1900;" and "school- 
houses are less expensive than rebellions." 
In his speech in favor of his bill for the 
establishment of a National Bureau of Edu- 



30 GARFIELD, 

cation, he made the humihating statement 
that, " if we inquire what has been done 
by the Governments of other countries to 
support and advance pubHc education, we 
are compelled to confess with shame that 
every Government in Christendom has 
given more intelligent and effective support 
to schools than has our own." This he 
supported by ample authorities and statis- 
tics, showing especially the condition of 
education under the leading Governments 
of Europe. He stated that "teaching is 
one of the regular professions in France; 
and the Government' offers prizes, and 
bestows honors upon the successful instruc- 
tor of children. . . . After a long and 
faithful service in his profession, the teacher 
is retired on half-pay, and, if broken down 
in health, is pensioned for life." Contrast 
this with the short-sighted and illiberal 
policy too often pursued in this boasted 
land of free schools, w4iere, as Garfield 



THE IDEAL MAN. 3 I 

conclusively showed in • the speech from 
which I quote, an enlightened and generous 
policy is more essential than in any other; 
for here, to use his own forcible language, 
"The alternatives are, not education or no 
education ; but shall the power of the citi- 
zen be directed aright toward industry, lib- 
erty, and patriotism ? or, under the baneful 
influence of false theories and evil influ- 
ences, shall it lead him continually down- 
ward, and work out anarchy and ruin, both 
to him and the Government?" "Liberty," 
in the calm, philosophic view of a Garfield, 
" can be safe only when suffrage is illumined 
by education," for "the life and light of 
a Nation are inseparable." 

I have only to add of Garfield as the 
Ideal Teacher, that he never ceased to be a 
student, nor to learn from all sources, 
— books, or nature, or men — even the hum- 
blest and most obscure. 

Early transferred from the school room 



32 GARFIELD, 

and the forum to the field, at the call of his 
country, which was to him as the voice of 
God, Garfield could not but make The Ideal 
Soldier. The quality or value of his service 
in the war for the Union is not to be meas- 
ured by the period of its duration, though 
long enough to include Middle Creek, and 
Shiloh, and Corinth, and Chickamauga; nor 
by the rank he held, or the numbers he 
commanded, though, in scarcely more than 
a year, he was successively Lieutenant- 
Colonel, Colonel, Brigadier-General, Chief- 
of-Staff, and Major-General, and though he 
showed himself a master spirit at a most 
important and critical period of the con- 
flict; but by the same grand conceptions 
of the meaning and issues of war and peace 
that made him elsewhere the ideal teacher 
and statesman. It was true of our late 
war, as of no other great conflict in the 
world's history, that it developed the sub- 
limest courage and devotion in the purest 



THE IDEAL MAN. 33 

and most peaceful walks of life, and, when 
it was ended, left fewer traces than any 
other of like magnitude, of violence and 
demoralization. As a rule, our soldiers went 
forth to battle from no love of arms, but 
from an imperative sense of patriotic duty, 
and those who survived returned to their 
homes and their former pursuits, to mingle 
again with the mass of their countrymen, and 
prove themselves as worthy and exemplary 
in peace as they had been loyal and valiant 
in war. And, in such a conflict, I repeat, 
Garfield could not but be the ideal soldier. 
"Ideas," said he, "are the great war- 
riors of the world, and a war that has no 
ideas behind it is simply brutality." He 
fitly described his own ideal of a battle 
when, in his oration on General George H. 
Thomas, he said of that noble soldier: 
' ' To him a battle was neither an earth- 
quake, nor a volcano, nor a chaos of brave 
men and frantic horses involved in vast 



34 GARFIELD, 

explosions of gunpowder. It was rather a 
calm, rational combination of force against 
force." "Think," he exclaimed, in address- 
ing the Boys in Blue in New York, during 
the campaign of 1880, " think of the great 
elevating spirit of war itself. We gathered 
the boys from all our farms, and shops, and 
stores, and schools, and homes, from all 
over the Republic, and they went forth 
unknown to fame, but returned enrolled on 
the roster of immortal heroes." Philoso- 
pher as well as soldier, he realized that 
"after the battle of arms comes the battle 
of history," and that "victory is worth 
nothing except for the fruits that are 
under it, in it, and above it." Of the 
fruits of such a war as the one in which 
he drew his sword, he thus eloquently 
spoke on Decoration Day, May 30th, 
1868, at Arlington, where, with thoughts 
of his country " redeemed, regenerated, 
and disenthralled." he stood "beside the 



THE IDEAL MAN. 35 

graves of fifteen thousand men, whose Hves 
were more significant than speech, and 
whose death was a poem, the music of 
which can never be sung : " " This arena of 
rebelhon and slavery is a scene of violence 
and crime no longer. This will be forever 
the sacred mountain of our capital. Here 
is our temple ; its pavement is the sepul- 
chre of heroic hearts ; its dome, the bend- 
ing heaven ; its altar candles, the watching 
stars." With unwavering faith in the prom- 
ise of the Right, he could "look forward 
with joy and hope to the day when our 
brave people, one in heart, one in their 
aspirations for freedom and peace, shall see 
that the darkness through which we have 
traveled was but a part of that stern but 
beneficent discipline by which the great Dis- 
poser of events has been leading us on to 
a higher and nobler National life." 

Summoned by the voice of the people 
from the school-room to the service of his 



36 GARFIELD, 

State, and thence by the call of his country 
to the field of duty and of glory, Garfield 
was soon recalled to enter upon that 
more distinguished career of statesmanship 
which, extending through nearly two dec- 
ades of almost uninterrupted successes, 
was to culminate in his promotion to the 
most exalted station in the gift of any peo- 
ple, and be crowned at last with an im- 
mortality of fame. Is it too much to say 
in this presence, and with his life and 
martyrdom still fresh in all minds and 
hearts, that Garfield had earned his right 
to be called TJie Ideal Statesman ? Where 
else in all our history as a Nation, shall our 
ideal be realized, if not in him, whose life 
was so complete and full of meaning? 
What, then, were the elements in the char- 
acter of the ideal statesman, that Garfield 
exemplified in his career ? These, namely : 
He should be a man of broad and liberal 
culture, honest purpose, catholic spirit, and 



THE IDEAL MAN. 37 

untiring industry, thoroughly conversant 
with the history, wants, resources, and 
possibiUties of the country, and the ivholc 
country. Loving his country and race, he 
should be a patriot in the broadest, best, 
and noblest sense, which would make him 
a philanthropist as well, and, though of 
necessity a strong party man where parties 
are representative of great principles and 
policies, never giving to party what (was 
meant for his country or mankind. To 
him "Partisanship is opinion crystallized,— 
party organizations are the scaffoldings 
whereon citizens stand while they build up 
the wall of their national temple." He 
should, moreover, be, what the mere poli- 
tician unfortunately is not always, a man of 
deep, earnest, and abiding convictions upon 
all questions vitally affecting the moral wel- 
fare of the people, and possessing the cour- 
age thereof, to boldly avow them, when to 
do so would be to incur the danger of 



38 GARFIELD, 

differing from the majority of his party, or 
being misunderstood by his friends, — be- 
heving that, in the end, "the men who 
succeed best in pubHc Hfe are those who 
take the risk of standing by their own con- 
victions." And, finally, as the crowning 
glory of all, he should be a Christian gentle- 
man. "This public life," wrote Garfield, 
" is a weary, wearing one, that leaves one 
but little time for that quiet reflection which 
is so necessary to keep up a growth and 
vigor of Christian character. But I hope 
I have lost none of my desire to be a true 
man, and keep ever before me the charac- 
ter of the great Nazarene. " All these 
essentials of the ideal statesman were found 
in Garfield, and it was because he possessed 
them in such an eminent degree, and so 
harmoniously blended in his grand and 
symmetrical character, that smaller men 
sometimes failed to comprehend, and were 
even inclined to criticise and disparage 



THE IDEAL MAN. 39 

him. The noblest elements of his great- 
ness were at times mistaken for weaknesses. 
He was too honorable ever, for the sake of 
a temporary advantage, to misstate the 
position of an opponent, but, on the con- 
trary, he would disarm criticism and give 
proof of the consciousness of his own 
strength by stating it more fully and accu- 
rately than he could do it himself. He would 
never compromise the proprieties of debate 
or lower the ideal standard of parliament- 
ary dignity to win a cheap reputation for 
personal courage. If he ever seemed to 
modify a statement in debate, it was of his 
own position, and not of another's, and 
from magnanimity, and not from fear. No 
braver soul ever lived. His ideal of states- 
man-like courage was the true Shaksperean 
one : 

" I dcare do all that may become a man; 
Who dares do more is none." 

Like the memorable sentiment of Henry 



40 GARFIELD, 

Clay, **I would rather be right than be 
President," is this of Garfield: "I would 
rather be beaten in Right than succeed in 
Wrong." ''There are some things," said 
he in a speech at Cleveland, "I am afraid 
to do ; I confess it in this great presence : I 
am afraid to do a mean thing." And no 
braver or more sublime utterance ever 
came from the lips of a Christian statesman 
than, when a candidate for the Presidency, 
he said at Chautauqua: "I would rather 
be defeated than make capital out of my 
religion." He could indorse no such motto 
as "Everything is fair in politics;" but 
public and private honor and virtue were 
alike, to him," dear as the apple of his eye.'' 
I can never forget how, in the conversation 
at my house, to which I have before alluded, 
he emphasized the necessity of maintaining 
the National credit. He said he had often 
been reminded, during the contests over the 
currency, of the pious exhortation heard at 



THE IDEAL MAN. 4 1 

religious meetings, to stand up for Jesus, 
Then, rising with his thought, as he often 
would in private conversation, as well as 
public speech, and with that peculiar ges- 
ture of his strong, uplifted arm, so familiar 
to those who knew him, he added : "The 
public credit is the Jesus of our political 
faith;" — a sentiment as noble as it was 
characteristic of this ideal statesman. " Let 
us," said he, in a speech on the financial 
situation, "have equality of dollars before 
the law, so that the trinity of our political 
creed shall be equal States, equal men and 
equal dollars throughout the Union." 

Having profoundly studied the problem 
of free government, Garfield well under- 
stood all the conditions of our National 
existence. He saw that greater liberty 
involved greater responsibility to the indi- 
vidual citizen — the unit of power in the 
Republic — and that wealth, extension of 
territory and increase of population, with- 



42 GARFIELD, 

out corresponding patriotism, intelligence 
and virtue, would but augment the perils of 
our institutions. It is not surprising, there- 
fore, that the famous prediction by Macau- 
lay, of the ultimate failure of our Constitu- 
tion, as one "all sail and no anchor," 
should have weighed upon his mind, and 
been more than once quoted in his 
addresses. It was to him, as to every 
thoughtful American, like an alarm-bell in 
the night. But his unswerving fidelity 
alike to his country and his ideal, con- 
strained him to answer the great English- 
man : " We point to the fact, that in this 
country we have no classes in the British 
sense of the word — no impassable barriers 
of caste. Now that slavery is abolished, 
we can truly say that through our political 
society there run no fixed horizontal strata 
through which none can pass upward. Our 
society resembles rather the waves of the 
ocean, whose every drop may move freely 



THE IDEAL MAN. 43 

among its fellows, and may rise toward the 
light until it flashes on the crest of the 
highest wave." 

The Hon. A. G. Riddle, in his admirable 
analysis of Garfield's character and life, 
which his great friend declared was to him- 
self "a revelation," written while he was 
yet a member of the House, asks and well 
answers these among other questions : 
"Why don't he lead his party in the 
House? Long service, rare ability, com- 
plete mastery of all the essentials— position 
included— quickness, temper, personal bear- 
ing, absence of enmities, all unite. The 
reins train carelessly through the hall, are 
thrown over his desk repeatedly, are some- 
times in his hands, and admirably used on 
occasion. Why don't he take them firmly 
as his, assert himself, be the man he is, and 
make the most of it? " The answer Mr. 
Riddle finds in his lack of egoism, or self- 
seeking. There is also, in my judgment, 



44 GARFIELD, 

another answer. A man so royally en- 
dowed, so richly and variously cultured, so 
broad, so magnanimous, so philosophical, 
could never be a mere parliamentarian, or 
dashing gladiator in the arena of debate; and 
accordingly, on the higher plane whereon 
he moved so grandly, though an acknowl- 
edged leader, he always led the tJioiight 
rather than the tactics of the House, and 
this was, to him, an ideal leadership. At 
the same time, he gave the most thorough 
and careful attention to the minutest de- 
tails of every question which came before 
Congress. A noteworthy example of this, 
as well as of his comprehensive statesman- 
ship, is to be found in the act under which 
the census of 1880 was taken, which is sub- 
stantially the same as the bill introduced 
and advocated by him for the basis of the 
census of 1870, and which then passed the 
House but failed in the Senate. He 
believed that a census should not be a mere 



THE IDEAL MAN. 45 

compendium of barren figures, but that it 
should exhibit as fully as possible the life, 
the progress, and the resources of the peo- 
ple. In a speech in the House, February 
i8th, 1879, in advocacy of this bill, he said: 
*'Ifwe had the power to photograph the 
American people in one second, all in one 
picture, and get all the conditions that the 
inquiries of the census could give us all at 
once, as through a telephone, and have it 
all recorded, it would be the ideal perfect 
census." 

My theme expands as I go forward, and 
I must end as I began. To define in a sin- 
gle sentence all the greatness of Garfield, 
he was The Ideal Man. Strength, symme- 
try, completeness, are words descriptive of 
the magnificent structure of his ideal man- 
hood. He was brave, yet considerate and 
forbearing; conservative, without weakness 
or compromise ; ambitious, without selfish- 
ness or dishonor. Barring all that was 



46 GARFIELD, 

unworthy, we might apply to him as most 
fitting, all the eulogium pronounced by 
Antony upon Brutus: 

" This was the noblest Roman of them all ; 
All the conspirators, save only he, 
Did that they did in envy of great Caesar ; 
He, only, in a general honest thought, 
And common good of all, made one of them. 
His life was gentle ; and the elements 
So mix'd in him, that Nature might stand up 
And say to all the world. This was a man ! " 

Living or dying, two things Garfield ever 
aimed to win and merit : his own self- 
respect and the smile of God. As he re- 
marked in his speech before the Ohio 
Legislature accepting his election as Sena- 
tor, '' I have represented for many years a 
district in Congress whose approbation I 
greatly desired ; but, though it may seem, 
perhaps, a little egotistical to say it, I yet 
desired still more the approbation of one 
person, and his name is Garfield. He is 
the only man that I am compelled to sleep 
with, and eat with, and live with, and die 



THE IDEAL MAN. A.'] 

Avith ; and, if I could not have his appro- 
bation, I should have bad companionship." 
From his post of duty in the House, he 
went to Chicago, all unconscious of what 
awaited him, yet seemingly in accordance 
with that strange Providence which guided 
him ever onward and upward to the end 
of his career, to become the ideal can- 
didate of the great part}' to whose support 
he had devoted the best energies of his 
manhood, because he believed it to repre- 
sent the highest interests of his countr}' 
and the welfare of mankind. Here I need 
not dwell, for the sequel suggests its own 
sad and impressive lessons more forcibly 
than any words of mine can express them. 
I can only repeat the thoughts that came 
welling up from my heart when, as his re- 
mains lay in state in our ]*'orest City of 
Cleveland, we all stood, overwhelmed and 
appalled, in the presence of the Nation's 



48 GARFIELD, 

*" I look back upon Garfield's wonderful 
life ; I reflect upon its humble beginnings, 
its heroic struggles, its sublime achieve- 
ments, its brave, tender, self-denying devo- 
tion, its magnificent culmination, and its 
sad and tragic ending, and it seems as if 
some grand orb, long coursing through the 
heavens, had suddenly fallen from the 
zenith into the depths of immensity; but 
what a track of brightness it has left be- 
hind ! My mind goes back over the long 
and eventful period of his service as our 
Representative in Congress, and I remem- 
ber with what eager interest and just pride 
men of both parties among his old constit- 
uents received the news of his election to 
the Senate, and finally of his nomination 
at Chicago ; I recall the incidents of that 
ever-memorable campaign which followed, 
in which he, as its central figure, bore him- 

* Remarks at the Opera House, Chardon, Ohio, Sunday 
evening, September 25, 1881. 



THE IDEAL MAN, 



49 



self so grandl}', speaking often, yet saying- 
nothing his most critical friends could wish 
unsaid, but much that will command the 
lasting admiration of the world ; I think of 
that most beautiful and impressive scene, 
at the last reception given him on his way 
home from Chicago, and which touched 
him more deeply than any other incident 
of that triumphal journey, when he was 
escorted through our streets, amid the 
ringing of bells, the firing of cannon, and 
the glad acclaim of the people, and the 
children of our public schools turned out to 
shower his pathway with flowers ; I think, 
too, of his modest, feeling, rather sad words 



on that occasion, his assurances to near 
friends that the honors and trials of the 
Presidency were by him unsought, as they 
would involve the sacrifice of his home life 
for a term of years, after which, though 
still in the strength of a vigorous and use- 
ful manhood, he would be compelled, in 



50 GARFIELD, 

deference to usage, to retire from public 
life, or, to use his own expression, 'be shut 
up like a leaf in a book,' and his sincere 
and earnest assertion that he cared more to 
have the old Nineteenth District stand by 
him than to gain the election ; I hear his 
voice, I see his grand, manly, generous, 
kindly face looking full upon me ; I feel the 
strong, magnetic pressure of his hand, and 
then I think of him as the innocent, patient, 
heroic victim of the darkest of crimes, and 
it quite unmans me. 

"There was something unspeakably pa- 
thetic in those last days of the stricken 
President, when, from his cottage window 
by the sea, he looked sadly but hopefully 
out, and watched the ships as they passed 
upon the waters. Withdrawn, as sooner 
or later all must be, from the busy world, 
and powerless as a child, this patient, suf- 
fering ruler of fifty millions of people felt 
in the vastness and grandeur of the ocean 



THE IDEAL MAN. 5 I 

a sympathy with his own great hfe, whose 
tide was fast ebbing out into the unknow^n 
depths of the infinite and eternal. As he 
began his career with a strange longing for 
the sea, it was fitting, if his ardent longing 
for his Mentor home could not be gratified, 
that he should be permitted thus to die in 
sight of its waves, and within the sound of 
its voice, which well might give one deep, 
sympathizing moan as his great soul went 
home to God!" 

To Garfield, education was a growth, the 
endless unfolding of God-given powers; 
war, a conflict of great and enduring forces ; 
politics, the noble science of government ; 
religion, a life ; the end of all sacrifice and 
endeavor, individual and national character. 
He lived an ideal life, and, with all the 
world watching in prayer at his bedside, 
breathlessly listening to catch the last pulsa- 
tion of that heart which never beat but in 
sympathy with all that is lo yal and good 



52 GARFIELD, 

and true, he died an ideal death. Though 
foully stricken from the height of his earthly 
career, he has left his country and the world 
the rich legacy of a peerless, ideal fame, to 
which the honors of the Presidency could 
but give an added lustre, and which time 
cannot dim. 

On the Saturday preceding the final ob- 
sequies, and while those precious remains 
were being borne from Washington to Cleve- 
land, I, in company with a devoted and 
life-long friend of the dead President, drove 
to Mentor, being actuated by a desire to 
visit once more the home where he had 
welcomed us in life, though the light of his. 
presence had gone out forever. The pict- 
ures on the walls, the historic office, 
the library where we had met one year 
before, and in fact almost everything else^ 
remained unchanged ; but, oh ! what a void, 
that could never be filled! On the sadly- 
memorable Monday following, in company 



THE IDEAL MAN. 55 

with the same friend, after Hstening to the 
services in the Park at Cleveland, I left in 
advance of the funeral cortege, and, securing 
an entrance inside the lines of sentinels that 
guarded both sides of the street, walked sor- 
rowfully up Superior street to Erie, thence to 
Euclid Avenue, and thence on and on until 
we reached Lake View Cemetery, — that 
beautiful, ideal burial ground of his choice,— 
where, standing in the rain by the side of 
the public vault, I saw all that was mortal of 
Garfield laid to rest. It was, indeed, a 
magnificent pageant, such as I may never 
ao-ain behold ; but, to me, it was all unreal, 
for I could not feel that Garfield was there. 
That great soul, which made him the ideal 
man he was, had returned to God who gave. 






jMJftkUKJJi 






AW^/^X' 



■mSom0' 



i«4P^^^««^«'« 



rnm^SmmmMm^^ 












^a^^^^^? 






:-C'^r<^A^AA.A^WW/,i';AS 



-mIwa'^Aaa/^ 



A'^':/^/^nn^A' 



/;>\'.iA;.A'iA' 



:ft,5j;* 









«K/^;nw 'n' « 'A' '^aOaaA' 



^ipy^^^W 



i^^Afiffl 



ftAAA-lM 









A**^' ^A^-^' 



\M^^^m^^:C^ 



&2'r\i«^^^ 



A *aAA 



^aA^^^^ 



AA/^i^AriAAW 



^^^^^>f^n«f^^w^';^,,^o^^AQ^^^ 



^ArS/^ AAA'^' /^/^/-^AA/^/ 






^r^^Saa:^?;'. 



Im!^ 












■^^^A^^^ 



,^^0^^' 









